The funds collected will be used to maintain the city’s stormwater system including everything needed to collect, treat or dispose of storm, flood or surface drainage water, such as retention and detention ponds, drains, pipes, streams, culverts, wetlands, ditches and catch basins.

The following accounts were taken from Columbia County Sheriff’s Office incident reports:

More suspicious people seen on Appling road

Residents on an Appling road reported suspicious people lurking near their homes.

Seven residents of one home on Jacqueline Drive told deputies Monday that they were trying to find a person who trespassed on a neighbor’s property at about 8 p.m. They said the person ran toward another home and into a wooded area near an abandoned home.

Despite their fearsome reputation, an encounter with a rattlesnake is no cause for alarm.

John Jensen, a senior wildlife biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, said timber rattlesnakes, such as the one killed last week in suburban Columbia County, are fairly abundant in Georgia, but aren’t usually seen in neighborhoods because they avoid human contact.

“Rattlesnakes tend to shy away from developed areas,” Jensen said. “In Atlanta, they are just gone from there altogether.”

Columbia County school officials have selected the architect who will supervise the construction of the county’s next four schools.

After evaluating proposals from 10 firms presented at a day-long meeting on Sept. 4, school board trustees voted unanimously on Tuesday to select James W. Buckley and Associates Inc. of Swainsboro, Ga.

Superintendent Sandra Carraway said the firm is one of the largest in the state and has considerable experience, having supervised construction of more than 200 schools.

A judge refused to accept the guilty plea Friday of a Hephzibah man accused of murder in connection to a 2012 attempted armed robbery in Columbia County.

Superior Court Judge James G. Blanchard Jr. would not accept the plea from Anthony Terrell Graddy, 37, at a sentencing hearing in Evans after Graddy said he had nothing to do with the attempted armed robbery and death of his cohort Patrick Smith, 33.

“If a client says he didn’t do it, I can’t accept his plea,” Blanchard said.